American Fascism and the Death of Democracy

 

Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, has a new book out entitled "The Reckoning." She was a wonderful interview and a must see on "The Last Word" last evening on MSNBC. Mary Trump is a psychologist and is very insightful as to the nature of the American electorate and brings to her argument much knowledge about the character and substance or lack of them of her uncle.  She was asked if she thought Trump was a fascist to which she replied yes, and thought about, as do I too, how Trump managed to get 74 million people to vote for him given his cruel bombastic essence, the mendacious character of his candidacy and the plethora of his administration's illegalities and ad infinitum lies over the past 4 years.

To understand the base of Trump's supporters we too must ask the question is he a Fascist.  If one looks to other eras in world history for the definition of a Fascist one need only look to 1933 Germany and Italy up through and including World War II.  The Webster's Dictionary definition of Fascism is "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." Clearly Donald Trump has designs on the echelons of in perpetuity power with him as the unquestioned authoritarian head forever if need be. 

It is clear from US history the interconnectedness of nationalism and race which has been part of US history since its inception and is an integral part of Fascist thought. Slavery, and the failure of Reconstruction, the institution of Jim Crow, literacy tests, lynchings, other killings of Blacks and segregation were prime examples of the cultivation of hate in American culture. The Republican dastardly attempts to deny persons of color the vote by institutionally guaranteeing dozens of laws across the nation are geared again to depriving Blacks and other persons of color the vote and ensuring white Republican control of all elections is the Republican right wing goal.  Certainly race and racism are to those who support fascist dictatorial movements a supreme ingredient of American fascism and one which Trump put his imprimatur on almost from the beginning of his trajectory to the presidency when he told the Proud Boys to "stand down and stand by." 

White supremacy is not new to the American political experience.  We fought the Civil War over it but what is new and what Trump delivered was a verbalization and an acceptance of it which was heretofore absent in American formal political parlance and campaigns for the presidency.  The members of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the American Nazi Party, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Base and numbers of militia groups across the country are standing by ready to do Trump's bidding whatever it may be.  When Trump called them to duty on January 6, 2021 and issued a seditious command they were there.  These groups are many in number and must have thought they died and went to heaven as Trump over and over again sanctions and advocates for their actions something that even Charles Lindbergh, supporter of 1933 Nazi Germany, could not do.  Trump tells mostly whites at a campaign stop to not be afraid to crack heads.  Mostly white men were at the staging of a coup at the Capitol, the seat of American democracy, using a variety of right wing supporters with a variety of symbols proclaiming 6MWE (Six million was not enough), sporting Camp Auschwitz tattoos and carrying an abundance of Confederate flags minutes before the election of Joe Biden was to be approved are more examples of Trump's treachery. Finally, Trump employs Hitler's use of the Big Lie, promoting consistently that the 2020 election was not lost by him but was stolen by the liberal left and Democrats when an abundance of authorities and even Republican courts clearly have found zero evidence of that.

These Fascist like groups are armed, they are violent, and the January 6, 2021 violent attack on the Capitol was an example of the brute force they would use to take democracy down.   American Fascism has a charismatic leader in Trump who advocates for American Fascism and the death of democracy. They tried this time to take it down and failed.  Maybe next time we will not be so lucky.  The threat to our democratic system of government is grave and immediate!

Join us and tell Congress to pass both the H.R. 1 For the People Act and H.R 4 the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.  Both are needed to Build Our Democracy Anew.